So that lay people can wrap their head around a very hard concept. One would think that this would be clearer to the person who wrote the paper. And if they offered an analogy that was as easy to use as an entry point to this very complex set of concepts, they would come off less as d-bags.

What's misssing is the statistic that the child will actually be born intersex. He's using data assuming biological birth results in only male/female. I know it's nitpicky, but that's the whole point of the puzzle, to look past intuitive results.

Posted
by
Soulskill
on Wednesday December 02, 2009 @06:50AM
from the put-your-money-where-your-gun-is dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Ben Kuchera from Ars Technica is reporting that EA/DICE has substantially changed the game model of Battlefield: Heroes, increasing the cost of weapons in Valor Points (the in-game currency that you earn by playing) to levels that even hardcore players cannot afford, and making them available in BattleFunds (the in-game currency that you buy with real money). Other consumables in the game, such as bandages to heal the players, suffered the same fate, turning the game into a subscription or pay-to-play model if players want to remain competitive. This goes against the creators' earlier stated objectives of not providing combat advantage to paying customers. Ben Cousins, from EA/DICE, argued, 'We also frankly wanted to make buying Battlefunds more appealing. We have wages to pay here in the Heroes team and in order to keep a team large enough to make new free content like maps and other game features we need to increase the amount of BF that people buy. Battlefield Heroes is a business at the end of the day and for a company like EA who recently laid off 16% of their workforce, we need to keep an eye on the accounts and make sure we are doing our bit for the company.' The official forums discussion thread is full of angry responses from upset users, who feel this change is a betrayal of the original stated objectives of the game."

Posted
by
kdawson
on Wednesday December 02, 2009 @05:21AM
from the bend-like-a-willow dept.

You know how, if you want to read a paywalled newspaper article, you can just paste its title into Google News and get a free pass? Those days may be coming to an end. Reader Captian Spazzz writes: "It looks like Google may be bowing to pressure from folks like News Corp.'s Rupert Murdoch. What I don't understand is what prevents the websites themselves from enforcing some limit. Why make Google do it?" (Danny Sullivan explains how they could do that.) "Newspaper publishers will now be able to set a limit on the number of free news articles people can read through Google, the company has announced. The concession follows claims from some media companies that the search engine is profiting from online news pages. Publishers will join a First Click Free programme that will prevent web surfers from having unrestricted access. Users who click on more than five articles in a day may be routed to payment or registration pages."

I'm always surprised when people write off the DS as being unfriendly to "Serious" Gamers. Seeing how many people, and how diverse a crowd use the DS in Japan, I'll argue that these users are much more serious gamers than half of those that would label themselves that here in the states. The simple reason is downtime while in transit which the Tokyoites and the majority of the country have and the vast majority of people in the states don't. There is something that makes you smile about sitting on the Chuo Rapid line and seeing 3 or 4 Salarymen playing on their respective DSs (and PSPs).

That aside, GTA CTW is one of the most enjoyable games I've played for the DS in a long time. I've been playing JP games for quite some time to get a decent game on, and I salute Rockstar for their efforts in the US with this one. If you haven't tried it out, give it a go. If you are the type that enjoys a GTA game, I can virtually assure you that you'll enjoy this one.

Though because of the perspective, I was really waiting for someone to say "No Donation, No salvation"

Laslo: I figure you've increased the power output to six megawatts?Chris: Yeah, about that.Laslo: Well what would you use that for?Ick: Making Swiss cheese?Mitch: The applications are unlimited.Laslo: No. With the fuel you've come up with the beam would last for what...15 seconds. Well what good is that?Chris: Oh Laslo. That doesn't matter. I respect you but I graduated.Mitch: Yeah, let the engineers figure out a use for it. That's not our concern.Laslo: Maybe somebody already has a use for it. One for which it is specifically designed.Jordan: You mean Dr. Hathaway had something in mind all along?Laslo: Look at the facts! Very high powered, portable, limited firing power, unlimited range. (Chris stops smiling.) All's you'd need is a tracking system, and a large spinning mirror and you could vaporize a human target from space.(Mitch glances at Chris.)Chris: This is not good.

worb writes: theWiikly.com has written an interesting article on the so-called "console war", and how Nintendo has already won. The author makes many interesting points, such as: "They became market leaders not because they 'destroyed' competitors but because their focus was on growth." Other factors include momentum, focus on people rather than technology (convenience over power), differentiation, and so on. The author makes a compelling case, with several claims followed by explanations and examples.